Six Million of Them, Six Billion of Us
by forty-two dreams
Summary: No one knows how powerful they are or what they have planned. No one can figure out why they believe what they believe. One day, the world will know. A Revelation is coming.
1. Petunia, Arabella, and Argus

Petunia Dursley was riveted by her new friend's stories, and Arabella Figg was happy to find an audience that considered them as fantastic as she did. "So this Mrs. Skower has a product that will remove the stain from _anything_?"

"Yes, dear. It's truly amazing. Why, my friend Argus swears by it. He's the first ever nonmagical caretaker of Hogwarts."

Petunia hid her expression on the pretext of straightening the tea cozy, trying not to wince at the school's name, but old habits died hard. Vernon had died ten months ago, and it had only been three weeks since she had accepted Arabella's confession. The woman had known about Harry for years, it seemed. It was nice not having to make up an unpleasant-sounding school for her nephew, especially because he seemed to be her race's last hope for survival and she had been duly attempting to treat him a little more kindly.

Petunia smiled. "I wish I had your casual attitude about magic."

Arabella was puzzled. "Didn't you grow up with a magical sister? I was always begging mine for favors over the holidays."

"Yes, actually I was, too."

"Well, then, didn't you learn what was standard in the magical world?"

Petunia sighed, remembering. "Initially, I did. Then I met Vernon and… his attitude toward magic was less than friendly. That's a story for another day."

Arabella seemed to sense her need to get off the subject. "Well, actually, I envy your ability to fit into muggle life. I've been going to this support group for the past few years on and off, and the leader says living without magic is much easier than becoming dependent. I should take you along sometime to a meeting; you'd brighten everyone up!"

"Will this Argus be there?"

Arabella shrugged. "Sadly, no. He's a squib in denial. Last I heard, he was subscribing to this Kwikspell course scam, insisting he has untapped powers."

Petunia tried to hide her burning ears as she recalled subscribing to said scam at fourteen. "He sounds like rather a sad case," she mumbled sheepishly.

"Oh, he takes most of it out on the students," she assured the other woman, helping herself to a slice of lemon and a few lumps of sugar. "Every so often he demands Dumbledore allow him to hang them up by their ankles from the dungeon. All in good fun, of course."

Petunia was shocked. "He doesn't do that now, does he?"

Arabella looked at her appraisingly. "Afraid for your nephew, are you? I can remember when he considered it a treat to stay with dotty, cat-loving Mrs. Figg rather than you!"

Sensing the accusing tone in Mrs. Figg's voice, the widow Dursley backed off. "And I can't apologise enough for those days." Her voice turned more serious still. "What do you think his chances are, realistically?"

"I have no idea. We can only hope. But for all our sakes, he'd better manage."


	2. Finneus, Jinnet, and Dorian

"Well, that was _fascinating_," Petunia remarked sarcastically to Arabella as they ambled to the bus stop. "How many repressed worries do _you_ have?"

"Oh, Finneus only does that to the new people, don't worry. All in good fun."

Finneus had been the mildly insane one. His attractiveness quotient could hardly be denied; even in a plaid flannel shirt and overalls, the man's gray eyes had twinkled most pleasantly. He had stalked her most of the evening with tips about her underlying fear of her sister setting her magically aflame. She was pleased to discover he was only having her on, but still rather disapproved of his methods. "All the same, I think I'd better stay clear of this particular support group, thanks."

Arabella was mortified. "Oh, please don't! You're the only one of us who has any experience; you were a great help showing how to cook and clean the muggle way. You could be leading the class soon—it's not as though anyone would miss Jinnet."

Petunia snorted. "That woman wouldn't know a hair dryer from a leaf blower." Jinnet had apparently been flaunting her expertise in all things nonmagical until Petunia had arrived. She had long grayish black hair tied in two "authentic muggle" pigtails by each of her ears and a tendency to wiggle her eyebrows, especially at the men who had come in raincoats, oblivious to the cloudless day.

"They didn't seem to trust me enough to listen."

"Oh, make an effort! They're good people. Besides, you need a social life." It could not be denies that most of her friends had been Vernon's friends, and her Saturday evenings had been admittedly empty before she met Arabella.

Well, it was nice to make good use of her housewife skills. And Arabella was right, Amanda and Jill had been quite friendly and helpful. At least Petunia had never made a voodoo doll of her sister. "I'm planning a fashion show for the meeting after next," she decided.

But Arabella was no longer listening. "Not them again. In broad daylight in an area strewn with muggles, too? They mean business."

Petunia was about to ask who she meant when she read the signs of the seemingly innocent picketers in front of her.

"**END THE OPPRESSION, STOP THE SECRETS"**

"**DOES YOUR CRYSTAL BALL HAVE THE ANSWERS NOW?"**

"**YOU LEAVE US HELPLESS, WE LEAVE YOU HELPLESS"**

"**DON'T TRANSFIGURE ON ME"**

"**THE ONLY GOOD WIZARD IS A DEAD WIZARD"**

And, most frighteningly,

"**SIX MILLION OF THEM, SIX BILLION OF US."**

Arabella was correct. They were practically broadcasting the existence of magic muggles.

"Won't people think it's just a joke?" asked Petunia. "You know, the end is near and all that?"

Arabella shook her head. "Listen."

And their leader, an oldish man in black, began to speak. "Have any of you ever lost a relative or friend for reasons you consider shady? Have you ever seen a dead body with no mark anywhere on it that should be perfectly healthy, except that it's dead? Ever feel like you can almost remember something truly odd, but just can't get your brain to focus on it?"

"Yeah," shouted a man from the back, "It's called a nightmare."

The leader nodded gravely. "More true than you know. A nightmare they are fast becoming. Who is "they"? They are all around us. They are your crazy aunt that seems to just appear behind you sometimes, whose house seems to be full of secrets. They are the man in the funny, old-fashioned cloak that couldn't possibly have been doing what you thought you saw him doing. And, most dangerously, they are the men and women who murder your children in their beds with only two words: _Avada Kedavra._

They're called Death Eaters, folks, and they don't take to people who can't do magic. It's a master race they're after, a race full of people that shouldn't even exist. And they have a powerful leader now, and his name is Vol--"

But he never got to reveal the villainous overlord's name, because a stunner hit him square in the back before he could get it out. Arabella said a silent prayer thanking the Hit Wizards from the ministry. Their work was so well disguised that no one in the crowd saw them sheaf their odd sticks of wood; the man could have easily fainted.

The other squibs shouted things like "They've got a right to know" and "Protection is not a privilege" before they scattered. None of them wanted to be on the wrong end of a Hit Wizard's wand.

Petunia saw now why she had to stick with the people she had met today. They may be odd, but they weren't running around with picket signs. And she wanted to make sure they stayed that way.

Arabella had seen these demonstrations before, even gotten junk mail inviting her to join them. But, like the muggles in the man's speech, she was sure she heard something she couldn't have heard. Or it was another person of the same name. In any case, she had a lingering memory of a fierce Hit Wizard shouting as he ran, "I'll get you someday, Dorian Dursley!"


	3. Vernon, Marge, Harry, and Dudley

"Anti-Wizard Inc.? In downtown Surrey? What could make them so... social?" asked Petunia anxiously. The world she had thought died with Vernon was flooding back with the speed and fury of a banshee on a broomstick. Most guardians of Hogwarts students were afraid of Voldemort, but Petunia worried more about her husband's family.

"They must have realized where the attacks were coming from. Urgent lot, them: always think the sky is falling and it's a witch's fault. Never mind that, now; I want to know if the leader of that—band is related to your late husband!" the old woman pressed. Could Petunia be more connected than she had thought? Could Vernon?

"Er, second cousin, actually. But their "demon hunting", as they see it, is what you might call a family business. Vernon was quite courageous to stay by me when he heard about Lily. If they ever found out about his former sister-in-law, it would be almost like members of opposing gangs marrying, like…"

"Like a pure-blood marrying a muggle." Arabella finished. "I see it works both ways. And I had thought the blind prejudice against wizards had been your idea—how could I have missed it?"

Petunia wrung her hands nervously. There was no turning back now. "Well, I did put on quite the act for Harry—if he'd found out Vernon and Marge had burned effigies of wizards in the cradle, well, you know what a hero he is."

Arabella looked down. "Oh, I know. If he's as much of a hero as Dumbledore says he is, those awful anti-wizards will have no reason to broach the depths of their cave dwellings for another hundred years. We'll protect them, all right. To think your nephew is going to kill for those ungrateful wretches!" She thought a moment. "Actually, that witch-burning was a load of toad kidneys. They only pretended to die."

"The cave dwellings are actually quite nice—chandeliers and everything-- with the exception of Marge's, but then again, she was in charge of training the magic-sniffing dogs. The way that dog Ripper went for Harry all the time, I was sure she'd suspect something."

"You mean to say there are more like that Dorian Dursley?"

"Oh, he's just an inquisitor-in-training. They tend to spread out in emergencies."

"Lovely."

"Who tend to spread out in emergencies?" asked Harry, who had just walked in covered in dirt. Remus Lupin and Kinglsey Shacklebolt had been training the young wizard three times a week: highly advanced Defence spells, wandless magic, some nasty and probably illegal charms and hexes, ancient runes (traditionally effective in banishing the undead in wizard folklore) and muggle-style hand-to-hand combat.

The last had been Petunia's idea—she was glad to be part of Harry's life in even the smallest way. The boy had been sparring with Dudley regularly, but after a stern talk from Petunia, each had restricted his moves to non-lethal, though Harry complained that this situation was not accurate training. It was just odd fighting Dudley without trying to hurt him. Harry wondered if he would ever get used to being on friendly terms with his family.

"The Mounties," Arabella invented quickly.

Harry looked at the two of them suspiciously. Neither had been particularly kind to him in his earlier years, and his instinct was not to trust either. This was nonsense, though—Mrs. Figg was a squib and his aunt had undergone a sudden and unexplainable change of heart. Why would either of them lie to him?

How very wrong he was.

A/N Brownie points if you know who Anti-Wizard Inc. is/ was-- if you regularly check the news on mugglenet or snitchseeker (which copies its news from mugglenet), you might remember these people from last year.


	4. The Wizard Muggle Alliance

Halfway through her first meeting as unofficial leader and her charges were already complaining. Petunia had whimsically decided to make the day "inner child day" in honor of Finneus, who sorely regretted his act of the previous meeting. After Duck, Duck, Goose, Ring Around the Rosy, and Blind Man's Bluff, she discovered the members of the Wizard Muggle Alliance were nowhere near as homogenous as she had thought. Half of them knew the games already.

"You mean you're not all squibs?"

The answers were scattered but seemed to have the same gist.

"My daughter is a witch, but she was muggle-born. I brought her along to learn about wizard culture before she starts school," said Jeremy.

"I got a Hogwarts letter, but never answered it," said Teresa. "I thought I had a promising career at my mum's dress shop, and she said magic was evil."

"My father and two of my brothers were wizards, but my mother taught me a bit about muggle life," Amanda shared.

"I abandoned the wizarding world after my older sister, an Auror, was killed," declared Jill.

"My son's a squib. I need to teach him how to live!" said Jeff.

"I'm half-and-half and my parents are divorced," proclaimed Jinnet.

So many complex lineages. They all had different histories, it seemed. More people in the world straddled two cultures than she had ever imagined.

And they had all come to her, for the simple reason that there was nowhere else. It was called the Wizard Muggle alliance, right? That name seemed to cover an endless number of situations. She couldn't possibly teach them all what they needed to know. Jinnet may have been the best teacher after all—an exact split—if she had spent as much time with her muggle father as her witch mother. From the pigtails, it seemed she had cut off her father when she was young—she knew the games but not the tax procedures.

Right then, she decided, they needed to choose. The ones who wanted to live magically would go with Jinnet, and the ones who wanted to live among muggles would go with her. They could still meet in the same place, for convenience, but no member of Jinnet's side would need to talk to any member of Petunia's side. The program could be run much more effectively.

She waved her hands confusedly. "This isn't going to work. Do you want to be wizards or muggles?"

They were silent for a moment, and Petunia didn't understand. It was a simple question.

Finally, Arabella spoke, in her soft, convincing voice. "It's not that easy."

"Why not?" Almost all of the people in the room knew enough about the wizarding world to get by in it, but some motivation to live like muggles. Couldn't they choose?

"Because," she said sagely, "Most of these people have been asking themselves that their entire lives."

Amanda spoke up nervously. "Why not both?"

Jeremy scoffed. "Both? You can't be a wizard and a muggle; there's a clear spilt. Magical powers or no magical powers. Right?"

Jill disagreed, shaking her head vigorously. "I never finished my sixth year at Hogwarts. I am no witch, powers or no."

Teresa concurred. "A few accidents that seem to defy the laws of physics don't make me a witch, either. It's where you grow up."

"Then, what if a squib changes his mind? Can't he become a muggle?" asked Finneus.

"You mean, you're going to encourage my son to leave me when I grow up?" demanded Jeff.

"And my daughter?" shrieked Jeremy. "Will she leave me when she becomes a witch?"

Arabella waited until the members had quieted. "It's so simple," she said. "Both. Two sets of clothes, two sets of possessions, two sets of customs, one identity. Identity is an illusion anyway; why do you folks need to define yourselves the way your families and friends have tried to?"

They all silently nodded.

"Then it's all agreed," affirmed Petunia. "Next week, everyone brings a muggle outfit and a wizard outfit, and we hear both sides."

Jeremy's daughter, Nina, who had looked worried during the argument, giggled now. "You mean, see both sides."

Petunia smiled broadly. "Yes, see both sides. I'd better bring some muggle makeup, too, for the women."

"What about the men? I thought we were going to explore both sides of our personalities?" jested Finneus, making Jeremy and Teresa titter.

They spent the remainder of the meeting playing both wizard and muggle games. Jeremy, Teresa, and Petunia learned about the effects of a bouncing charm, and Jill, Finneus, and Amanda soon came to dominate Red Rover. The meeting ended with an eclectic-sounding Spin the Enchanted Bottle, and sparks of several kinds were seen.


	5. The Show

Harry seemed to be taking his newest responsibility well, not that he wasn't used to odd chores from his aunt. He felt an odd sense of superiority at the idea of guiding Jeremy, his daughter, Nina, and his aunt through the Leaky Cauldron and around Diagon Alley on a search for the oddest school supplies required by any educational establishment in the world. He would get his own school supplies at the same time, dazzling Jeremy with his seventh-year knowledge of wizard culture, providing Nina with useful tips about which teachers to avoid (ineptness, freakish government loyalty, Dark Marks, and greasy hair were some dead giveaways), and show Aunt Petunia just what he'd been so attached to all these years. Hey, he'd been in intensive training for the past month; Harry deserved a bit of fun.

Before the shopping trip, though, there was this Wizard Muggle Alliance meeting. He amused himself for a moment with the memory of his trip to the Quidditch World Cup three years earlier but considered fashion shows a girly pursuit. Still, the thought of establishing some muggle ties wasn't so bad, especially as his memories of the mundane world were fading and each successive report of a muggle attack caused the race to seem farther and farther away from his own existence. Who, exactly, was he protecting?

But now they were here, and Harry was put to work hauling stepping stools for the makeshift stage and transforming Jeff's bathroom into a backstage makeup room.

"So, you're the protector of the small?" Jinnet greeted him between trips back and forth from the driveway with stools, which the Alliance members had generously donated.

"Erm, well, that depends," he responded uncertainly. "If I am, I haven't been doing very well lately."

"Oh, don't get a Messiah Complex on me," Jeremy accused. He really did lay into the newcomers, thought Petunia: it wasn't just me.

"Yeah, you're not much older than my nephew, and his most important responsibility in life is to learn to play the base well enough so that his band mates don't have to cover their ears," quipped Jill.

Nina had taken to Harry from the moment he had arrived. "Are there really unicorns at Hogwarts, or was Amanda just having me on?" she wanted to know.

"Yeah, and they especially like girls," he told her. "There are dragons and phoenixes and everything."

"See? You owe me a knut," Amanda told the girl.

"What's a knut?"

Harry laughed. "Don't worry, we'll exchange your money; it's not more than a few pence."

"So are there giants, too? Do they grind our bones? And horse men?" she continued innocently.

The wizard frowned. "You can't go assuming anything about other species. They… can get rather offended, especially the, er, horse men. How would you like it if all wizards thought you were like Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle, from their comic books?"

This put an end to her questions. Fortunately, it was time for the party to begin.

Arabella's voice came over loud and clear with the sonorous spell Harry had dutifully cast, rather glad of his new over-age privileges, and Petunia's joined hers with the aid of a regular electronic microphone. "And strutting down the runway in a Gladrags favorite from the Jill Prewett collection is Teresa the supermodel! Just look at the way she graces the catwalk with her stylish walk," announced Petunia of a blushing Teresa, right before she tripped straight over the lowest footstool. Jeff's son Dominic caught her gallantly and the show resumed.

Harry's prediction had been correct: this was a red-blooded male's worst nightmare. The other men seemed to be getting into it, though, as Timothy, a friend of Jinnet's who had been dragged along partially against his will, ambled through the stools in a forest green dress robe, clutching the arm of Amanda (clad in corduroys and a strapless red halter) in a way that made the muggle- raised present blush furiously. For one, he appeared to be considering an inter-cultural relationship, but for another, Petunia, true to her word, had daubed both the women and the men with mascara, lipstick, coverup, and bright green eyeshadow.

They had just gotten over their fit of giggles when the doors burst open and a voice called, "This is Dorian Dursley! Proceed into the kitchen with your hands up; we have the place surrounded and you are all hostages!"


	6. Susan and Antonio

Susan Dursley felt giddy. One week ago, one week from yesterday, to be exact, a tall, handsome stranger had wandered into her town's high school, and this evening he was buying her an egg cream, taking her to the talking pictures, and walking her home. She still had it.

"If only it were a bit darker," she thought aloud, "we could have a bit of privacy." Susan had two older brothers who would surely be looking out the parlour window for her by the light of the street lamps.

Antonio D'Angelo smiled mysteriously. "Your wish is my command." He pulled out what looked like a cigarette lighter and, with a flick of his wrist, all eight lamps were out.

Susan nearly fainted. Antonio clapped a hand to her mouth in order to stop her scream. Uncovering it slowly, he entreated her not to make a sound above a whisper.

"But you're a wi… an odd person!"

"Not really," he grinned. "Nicked it from an old ambassador's husband the last time they were at our house. You see," he continued with the air of one sure of his ability to impress a small-town high school senior, "the D'Angelo family is a little-known clan in your world. But we link the Mundane universe to a group known as the wizarding world.

The wizards need to stay in contact with a muggle—that's someone who can't do magic—a muggle family, so that when a Dark wizard comes to power, we can distribute protection charms to muggle villages. Right now, a bloke called Grindelwald is trying to gain power, and we need to ward all the nearby towns. The ambassadors are at our place every week. So," he smiled seductively, "if you want to see some more magic, all you have to do is go out with me next Saturday."

She looked as if he had just pulled out a gun and aimed it at her. "You… you NEGOTIATE with those pigs!"

He rubbed his palms nervously. "You mean you've heard of our world?"

"Heard of it! Why, it's been the mission of the Dursleys for millennia to destroy the wizards!"

"Why, that's ridiculous! They don't mean you any harm. There's only a few million of them, and billions of muggles."

"But of course they mean us harm! They're satanic!"

Antonio pulled out a single red rose. He pulled a bit at the ends, and it instantly turned inside out and became a daisy. Antonio presented it to a gaping Susan, then softly kissed her.

"Well, then, I guess I'm just a devil's advocate." He began to stroll away, whistling carelessly.

"Wait!" she called. "Tell me more about your world!"

And he did.

The next morning, she dashed into her brothers' room. "You'll never believe what I've found out about wizards…"


	7. The Revelation Side of the Schism

Petunia rose. "You're… you're Dorian Dursley, are you? The demon hunter?"

Dorian smiled grimly. "Dursley, yes. But I'm on the revelation side of the schism. Now get against the wall, all of you!"

Dominic looked the three men up and down with an appraising glance. To him, they appeared to be carrying curious bits of metal. "Shouldn't you be armed or something?"

Jill pulled him back with a protective arm. "Be careful, Dominic: you don't want to be on the wrong side of those guns."

"Guns?" he gulped. "Like the ones Jinnet warned us about?"

Jeff grabbed onto the back of his son's collar. "Exactly like those."

Petunia stepped forward defiantly. "Not that it matters, but what is the revelation side of the schism, and why does it bring you here? Does it have something to do with the red sashes you and the people near you were wearing on the Dursley family lineage?"

Dorian shook his head. "Those were x's, you enabling hag; they crossed us off the tree for changing our spots. Each successive generation has to be on the tree, but they don't have to like it."

"Enabling?" Petunia didn't understand.

"You are Petunia, aren't you? Vernon's wife? I heard you cooperated wholeheartedly with my not-distant-enough relatives. Pretending you didn't even have a sister!"

"Well, if your type was going to kill her for being a witch, what was I supposed to do?"

Dorian glared at her, shrugged, and kept talking. "My type would not be the type to kill her. You see, two generations hence, my grandfather, Robert Dursley, had an argument with your husband's grandfather, Thomas Dursley.

"Robert believed that those fortunate muggles who knew of the existence of magic should convince them to break their three hundred year Seclusion. The dark times of witch burning are over; they would be in some danger, of course, but they'res got to be some sort of anti-nuclear missile jinx, and when it was all over, wouldn't life be more worth living if six million odd people didn't have to have their own little world?

"Thomas, of course, disagreed. His family had been fighting wizards for millennia; he, for one, thought killing them outright would be easiest. Took the reign of Grindelwald rather hard, that one. Their sister had married this fellow called D'Angelo, God rest his soul, whose family had been in charge of distributing magical remedies to muggle villages destroyed by the Dark Wizards Walpurgi for centuries. Until about twenty years ago, when your minister informed us that he owed us no aid whatsoever for the duration of the fight against Voldemort."

"That sounds like Fudge, all right," Harry broke in.

"Now you see why I need you people to cooperate, and whether willingly or unwillingly, you will cooperate." He nodded at his two men. "Word has reached us of a new minister for magic. Unfortunately, without any idea how you magical folk operate, we have no idea how to find him or her. None of our old linking devices work anymore. Fortunately, some careless person put up a flier for this Wizard Muggle Alliance group that was meeting here next week."

Teresa burned scarlet. "Well, it was after my first meeting! I didn't know you folks were so tight on security!"

"Be that as it may, you will lead me to the new leader of the magical world, or I will have to give this young wizard a more thorough understanding of the workings of a gun."

Jeff pulled Dominic tighter to him. "I'm actually a squib," said Dominic shyly.

"A what?"

"Magical parents, but no talent myself."

The three men squinted at the boy. "How does that happen?" the man behind him wondered to himself.

Dorian waved a hand impatiently. "No matter. Who here is a full witch or wizard?"

Harry Potter stepped forward. "I'm… well, I've been trying to bring down Voldemort since I was eleven. He killed my parents when I was a baby. I'll take you to McClaggen if you like. We were on our way to Diagon Alley anyway."

The man to Dorian's left spoke for the first time. "Potter? The one they say defeated the Dark Lord?"

Harry took a step back. "How did you—"

"The wizards were a bit lax on security that day. We almost got in contact with the minister again, but he was one of the few that wasn't too happy. In any case, I'm Brian, and it's an honor to meet you."

Harry shook his hand solemnly. "I'm not having much luck this time around, though."

The man who had been in back stepped up to him. "I'm Mark, by the way. Why do you have to defeat him? Aren't there wizards trained for that sort of thing?"

Harry hesitated, wondering if these men could possibly be spies. "I… I just do. Magically."

They seemed to accept this. Half an hour later, the seven unlikely allies were on their way to Diagon Alley.


	8. Thomas and Robert

"Susan, is there anything but air between your ears? Do you go out looking for trouble? Do you, in fact, try the hardest you can to be stupid?" asked Thomas. "This boy is obviously a satanic sympathizer. You have known him, personally, for less than forty-eight hours. And, as you know, Wizards. Are. Evil!

Susan didn't know what to say to the first part of this. She settled for addressing the salient point. "But Antonio's nice! And how do you know wizards are evil; have you ever met one?"

Thomas closed his eyes for a moment, simmering with rage. "No one should have that kind of power! Think of what could happen if they wanted, for some reason, to use it against us. Haven't you heard of these Walpurgi? A bloke named Grindelwald has a grudge, and whole villages are wiped out. That kind of power corrupts. It comes from Satan; you know that."

"No, I don't know that," Susan said rationally. "Martin Luther was thought to be from the devil, and where would we be without him today? Benjamin Franklin's lightning rod was supposed to be going against divine wishes, and today, everyone's got one."

She paused, trying to think of something else, drawing on what Antonio had said. "And the only reason wizards don't like us is we forced them into their Seclusion. We wouldn't let them join our communities, so they formed their own. Plenty of them live in peace, Thomas, without trying to wipe us out."

Robert joined their conversation for the first time. "There are radicals in every breed," he said calmly. "Why not?"

"Oh, not you, too. You want these… beings… walking among us without fear? What if, say, you get into an argument with the witch down the street, and she turns you into a mouse? Funny, but deadly. Let's face it: our dear sister has been ensnared by a pretty boy. How do we know one of the things he so cleverly snitched from his, erm, embassy, wasn't a love potion? You tell him tomorrow we're moving, and it's all fixed."

Susan looked at her older brother with narrow, dangerous eyes. "I will not," she snarled.

"You 'will not'? Are you daft? Are you a lovesick puppy, Susan? Do you…"

But no one ever got to find out what Susan did or did not do, because the vase on the table between Thomas and Robert exploded at that very moment. Thomas had been staring at that vase for the past five minutes. Robert and Susan suddenly started staring at him, astonished.


	9. McClaggen

Well, thought Harry, they had made it. It had been a job getting some of the less magical members of their group into the Leaky Cauldron (Mark still swore he saw nothing), Nina had dawdled a bit over the school supplies, and they had asked four people, at least two of whom were generally agreed to be less than savory, where the correct phone booth was, but they were finally at the ministry.

Now they had to get in to see the new minister of magic, facing down an army of bored-looking counter-dwelling clerks who Arabella suspected were at least thirty years her junior. The Look-I'm-Harry-Potter routine, which they had spent half an hour convincing Harry to even attempt, had failed. The pretence of registering their group in the official ministry ledger had gotten them as far as an ancient and even more bored looking scribe. The name Dursley meant nothing to the clerks, and they laughed at Dorian's gun, until he shot a hole through the roof, at which point it was confiscated with an authoritative Accio. It was time for the Wizard Muggle alliance and its newest fans to lie through their teeth.

Harry disappeared into the men's room with Brian and returned fifteen minutes later with a sufficiently important-looking man—it was a good thing the sixth year curriculum had covered Glamours and the D'Angelo delegation was already wearing businesslike suits--, and Brian stormed up to the desk.

"As the Cornish Ambassador to England, I demand audience with the Minister of Magic!"

The clerks looked at each other dubiously—they apparently hadn't studied the geography of the wizarding world very thoroughly—and finally let them pass. McClaggen waited in an expensive seeming but simple office down the hall.

"Why, hello, Mr… oh what is the Cornish minister called again?"

"Sir, my name is Dorian Dursley, and I don't believe the Cornish are still a country in either world."

"Dursley?" he gasped. "Why, you were certainly in several of the briefings from my advisors. Want to assassinate me, do you?"

"No sir. I'm from the D'Angelo Dursleys. In the short run, we want the protection we had twenty years ago from the Bagnold Administration. Amulet spells regenerated, midwives reinstated, and so on. In the long run, we're gunning for a Revelation."

McClaggen thought a minute. "Oh, I have been expecting a visit from you. Yes, the midwives are already being prepared; trainee healers from St. Mungos have already been assigned—they just need to finalize travel plans. Amulets should be up to full force soon. But what is this Revelation?"

Dorian frowned, pleased at the protection pledged and obviously debating whether to bring up his ultimate goal yet. He decided to go for it.

"Revelation, sir, is the opposite of what you wizards refer to as the Seculsion. The D'Angelo Dursleys believe the world has moved past the days of witch burnings. We want to gradually acclimate the muggle world to the wizard race once again, and we need your permission to do it."

A vein in McClaggen's neck appeared to be in danger of popping out of his skin. "You want me to do what? In war time? You make it sound as if you're asking to start up the Gobstone league again. I'm sorry, but you gentlemen are going to have to wait a few centuries. The muggles have enough nuclear weapons to annihilate us ten times over. For Morgana's sake, men, there are six billion of them and six million of us!"

Mark cleared his throat. "With all due respect, minister, we have noticed a dramatic downturn of religious fanaticism in government the last ten years in the muggle world, especially in Europe. With the proper tact and evidence of non-demon affiliation, it should work splendidly. As for the wartime, didn't the idea of having to hide his abilities drive the half-blood known as Lord Voldemort to start on his path of genocide in the first place?"

McClaggen's forehead remained rigid. "I'm sorry, but you people can't even convince your distant relatives—you are related to the other Dursleys, correct?"

Brian nodded.

"You can't convince your distant cousins to believe you. Why should anyone else?"

Dorian grinned slyly. "So, if we can convert the rest of the Dursleys, you'll help us?"

McClaggen wagged his finger at them. "I can't promise anything, but it would be a fantastic start, as well as a convenience to us at the ministry. I can't think of anyone offhand that's more fanatical about witchcraft."

"Thank you sir. We should be back in a matter of weeks."

The group departed swiftly. "What do you mean?" Petunia hissed in Dorian's ear as they left the Ministry.

"Oh," Dorian told her, "This is better than what I expected. I found some interesting things in my attic about a month ago, one of which was my grandfather's diary. I've been meaning to talk to those other Dursleys for a while now…"

Hestia the Witch: Tedious as those three words can be, I thought it better not to insult my one consistent reviewer...


	10. The hostage

"Are you sure this is the place?" Dorian asked his second cousin.

Petunia nodded. "How many underground dwellings do you know of? I was rather careful to write down the street name of the house of a family that wanted to kill my sister. Corner of Rose and Hawley."

The entire alliance had tagged along. Moral support, they said, although Dorian was thinking more along the lines of safety in numbers.

"Petunia, this is a sewer."

She nodded again, proud to be leading the way for once. "Manhole number 198426, to be exact," she asserted, rapping twice on the cover, stomping six times, and rapping seven more times, and marveling at the paranoia of a family who had never even seen an Unforgivable Curse.

"Who goes there?" called a voice from below. Nina took a step back, and she wasn't alone.

"The wife of Bath," Petunia answered.

A minor scuffle was unfolding below between two children who couldn't have been older than twelve.

"Bath? Was that Paul's name?"

"No, Paul was the Pardoner."

"So who was Bath?"

"I think it was Vernon. Well, whoever it is couldn't possibly be a wizard spy; they know our code."

They lifted the cover.

Dorian peered down into the foyer. "Only half right, lads," he answered. "Vernon was Bath. But I am a wizard spy."

Petunia managed to pull Dorian out of the way seconds before the explosion. "I should have warned you they can't take a joke down here," she apologized. "At least now we're going to get to meet their leader pretty quickly."

She wasn't wrong. An oldish woman appeared in the foyer. The members of the alliance cautiously started filing in, although they hadn't been asked. The woman also had a small pistol, as well as what looked like a metal detector, except that the readings were 'mortal', 'magician', 'wizard', 'sorcerer', and 'enchanter'. Thankfully, the machine was either fraudulent or out of batteries, because it remained silent even after passing Harry, Nina, and Jeff. "State your business," she prompted them.

Dorian had been much more enthused about his findings before he was surrounded by wary looking Dursleys. "Erm, we have… some evidence has come to… look, your grandfather was a wizard, and we have proof!"

Several of the younger Dursleys fainted on the spot. The rest cracked their knuckles threateningly. While Dorian stuttered through an explanation of the diary, Ella Dursley grew murderous, and no one was paying enough attention to notice Dominic quietly wander off with Nina.

The house was deserted; everyone was crowded into the foyer to see the excitement. The two ambled through what seemed like a pleasant eighteenth-century mansion, except that it was underground. They glanced at a highly decorated family tree, admired an expensive-looking art collection, and finally stopped in a child's bedroom.

The tot couldn't have been more than three, but he already appeared to be indoctrinated. Clad in only a pair of overalls and a toy soldier's hat, he stumbled towards them. "I'm gonna bust some witchers," he solemnly informed them.

Nina was horrified. "This family is evil!" she shrieked. "Look at this little… little… worm!"

And suddenly, he was. Dominic nodded knowingly at Nina's crimson face; worse damage had been done accidentally by his younger brothers and sisters before they had gotten their Hogwarts letters.

Nina nearly choked, but Dominic neatly clapped a hand over her mouth. Smoothly, he slipped the worm into his pocket.

"Are you mad?" Nina gasped when he had finally released her.

"Not on your life," Dominic answered. "Dorian's dying out there. We have a very convenient and unexpected hostage. What could go wrong?"

Famous last words.

A/N: All reviews make me smile. I don't care if you send me an emoticon; it's better than nothing.


	11. The idea

The alliance had not met for a month, as Arabella thought it would be best not to encourage the spread of rumors among overly excited members. Even so, the meeting had started out quite energetically, and, after assuring them the Dursley child had been retransfigured and was sleeping peacefully in Petunia's house in one of Dudley's old cribs, she had been desperate to get their minds off of their small hostage. It was in this frantic state that she had agreed to Finneus and Jeremy's suggestion to talk a bit about their pasts.

Half an hour later, she was almost glad she had.

"Well, originally, it wasn't a big deal, you know. All of my muggle paperwork bore the name 'Jeanette', J-e-a-n-e-t-t-e, the muggle spelling, and my wizard papers said 'Jinnet', J-i-n-n-e-t. It was pronounced the same way. They figured they'd decide when I got old enough to read. That was right after I was born. By the time I was three, they had divorced, and my name was something of a minor war.

My dad was terrified of wizards, even before he divorced mum. He didn't want me growing up to have that much power, you see, and having to go to mum to learn to control it, and getting so far into that culture I wouldn't even know him anymore. That was about what happened, actually. My mum always worried a bit too much about me knowing my wizard heritage. In fact, I was furious at him until about two years ago, when I went back to his hometown for my grandad's funeral, and I didn't even remember why. That's how the Alliance got started, you know."

Teresa jumped in at this. "All those years, and I'd never told her about my letter. I didn't know she was magical, too; how could I have? But I couldn't help it when she was finally back and we were starting to revert to old times. What she was talking about with her parents reminded me so much of how mad my gran was when my mum wouldn't let me go to Hogwarts. And we decided no one else should be split by this sort of thing."

Amanda silently agreed. "I wish I could have brought my family here a few decades ago. We were split by a stupid chess game! I was playing one of my magical brothers, and we got into an argument over whether he could use the talking chessmen that wouldn't listen to me. It got more and more tense until my brother and I had finally worked it out, but by that time my parents were shouting too loudly to hear us, and my muggle brother, my mum and I spent the next month in a muggle hotel."

Timothy put his arm around her. "This stuff that divides us up is so stupid!"

Jill took offense to this. "My sister died, and it wasn't stupid! The wizarding world is dangerous, especially to those who weren't born there. When a muggle gets mad, he doesn't suddenly burst out in rage. Wizards just have too much power; that's the problem."

"Plenty of muggles have no trouble bursting out in rage," said Harry quietly. Petunia looked at him, as did Dudley, who was at his first meeting. They opened their mouth to say something, anything that would show him how much they had changed since those days, but Harry put up his hand to silence them.

"Don't worry, I've gotten past that. I'm not Voldemort."

"You mean this dark wizard is terrorizing muggles because one or two of them was nasty to him?" Asked Teresa.

Harry nodded.

"How do you know that?" asked Jeff in a curious tone.

"I get around," Harry responded cryptically.

"But that's no different from the Dursleys, only backwards!" Nina said, astonished.

Dominic made an observation. "The Ministry of Magic isn't as different from Voldemort as it seems. They both seem to fear muggles, even though they're stronger than them, because muggles are so numerous. Voldemort's just more radical about it. The Ministry feels safe in its walls, but the muggles have enough power to destroy the world with nuclear weapons now. What if Dorian ever pulled off his Revelation? Would we be flung into a worldwide anarchy? Voldemort would have wizards lining up to join him out of pure fear."

"Just what Dorian wants to prevent with his Revelation," Finneus noted. "Why don't we have a war, then? It might make things easier."

"We have the element of surprise. What if we restrained them with ropes all at the same time and forced them to deal with us? The Christian wackos would be powerless, and we could let everyone else go," said Jeremy.

"How can you say that?" Asked Nina. "You're a muggle yourself. And some of the Christian wackos, as you call them, are smart enough to lie. It would be even easier for them to secretly form a resistance force if we started off our Revelation like that."

"So, what do we do?" Asked Arabella.

Suddenly, Jill had an idea. "What about the opposite?"

"What, you mean restrain all the wizards with ropes?" Dominic asked.

"No! We do something really wonderful for the muggles right after Revealing ourselves. Couldn't we cure some muggle disease with potions?"

"Don't you know anything?" grumbled Jeff. "There used to be a lot more diseases before wizards started killing them."

"Well, then, natural disasters? What if the next time there's a terrible earthquake or something, we stop it? Then we could catch the public's eye as heroes and explain everything."

"I don't see why not," said Amanda. "Let someone call us the Antichrist after we've levitated a giant rockslide off of them. The only problem would be getting the rest of the wizards to go along with it. How would we convince the purebloods?"

"We don't consult them," Finneus replied. "All we need is the ministry, and after we give the Dursleys back their little hostage, that's not going to be a problem."

"Are you sure even a missing child is changing their minds?" asked Petunia. "I haven't seen any white flags yet."

"If that child's mother won't convince them to at least listen to us, then that lot is more radical than I thought."


	12. The Dursleys and Amos

"Oh, you men," sighed Ella Dursley, pushing the leaves out of her whitish hair. "My great grandson has been kidnapped by magicians or worse, and you won't even ask for directions."

"Considering anyone we could ask is probably more dangerous than the magicians, I'd say we should probably use a map," Barnaby Dursley retorted. Every Dursley over the age of sixteen had turned out to search for Paul's son (and fifteen-year-old Brenda wasn't wild about looking after all her younger cousins, either). Like all of the Dursleys, the child had been implanted with a homemade tracking device at birth, but once they'd traced him all around London and finally to a place called Ottery St. Catchpole, it had started beeping at top speed, though the young Dursley was nowhere to be seen. The clan was hot, tired, and utterly lost.

"Well, you're getting us nowhere," snapped Rilla Dursley. "I'm asking someone who appears to know what he's doing."

"How would you know?" her older brother asked.

Rilla fixed him with a death glare. "Think logically. No one ever notices magicians. They must walk among us dressed as mortals. But they don't usually dress as mortals. Therefore, any person who looks like a badly dressed mortal is a magician."

Her brother was not impressed. "You think you know everything, Rilla, but one day I'm going to be the first one to figure something out, and I'll never tell."

A man tapped him on the shoulder. "You lot must be muggles. I swear I'll never understand that Arthur Weasley's taste in houseguests… Well, it's a good thing I found you; his house is charmed not to let you know it's there—he must have forgotten. Knows all about screwdrivers, that one, but wouldn't last a minute on a muggle street. I'm Amos Diggory, by the way. Come along, just take hold of my hand and you'll be able to see his house."

Rilla looked up at him. "What did you just call us?"

"Muggles. Not magical," he answered briskly. "Oh, I'm sorry, it's not an insult or anything," he added, catching a glimpse of Barnaby's face.

Ella stepped forward. "What do you lot care if you insult us?"

Amos looked her up and down. "I beg your pardon?"

She sized up the odd-looking man before her. "You heard me. Magicians have never thought much of mortals before now. What did Grindelwald care, after he'd slaughtered a thousand muggles with a flick of his devilish wand, if he insulted the ones left?"

The wizard frowned. "Grindelwald? That was ages ago. And not all wizards are dark, or even prejudiced towards muggles. Mr. Weasley, for example—you were invited here by him, were you not? Where have you gotten your information?" Mr. Diggory's suspicions had been peaked.

Barnaby was livid. "Don't play games. This Mr. Weasley, or whoever lives in this house, has my nephew. I've no idea what they're doing to him. You will let us in NOW!"

"Certainly," he answered taking a step back. "As I had intended. Maybe Arthur can sort this out. With that, Amos grabbed hold of Rilla's wary hand, and she began joining hands with her family. In a moment, all present could make out the shape of a precariously balanced and highly amusing looking house.

It certainly wasn't the barbed-wire-covered fortress they'd been expecting. "Why, it's nice!" exclaimed Rilla's cousin Courtney. "Are you… are you sure all magicians are awful? Maybe it's just some, like the Whigs in our world."

Barnaby grabbed her arm. "Careful, dear, they have all sorts of ways of deceiving us." He strode forward purposefully. "I'm not afraid. Come and get me, you freaks of nature!"

Petunia happened to answer the door. "Oh, hello," she greeted them in an offhand manner. "We've been expecting you."


	13. The allies

Petunia had been helping Molly with breakfast when the doorbell rang. As the Weasleys had not been expecting guests in addition to Harry, Dudley, and her, and Arthur would not be home from work yet, she knew who it must be and rushed to answer it. She smiled at the memory of Arthur upon hearing their long-range plans.

"Full integration? I don't believe it, Perkins and I have been preparing since we made the anti-Voldemort amulets theoretical quantum physics books. Most of the muggles never got it, though. Have you decided on the Benevolence yet?"

But Arthur was gone now, and Molly would not be as optimistic at the sight of her visitors.

"Come in, come in," she drawled, hoping she appeared far more casual than she felt. "Now, your presence means you are willing to listen now, I expect?"

"Listen? No, I don't believe a seminar was in our plans for the afternoon," Ella responded coolly, sensing the game the woman wanted to play. "We'll just pick up little Jimmy and be off—we do thank you for taking such good care of the child."

"Oh, and I almost forgot," Barnaby growled, pulling out a revolver, "the Dursleys pay for baby sitters by the hour."

In an instant, all trace of a game was gone; Molly's wand was out and pointed at the man's throat. "Do you want to know what I can do with this? Your little toy will most likely be incinerated in the blaze."

Courtney stepped forward. "Please, I know what tempers you folk have, but we just want the boy back."

"Tempers!" Molly's voice rang to the rafters, rousing the more sluggish Weasleys. "Tempers!" She frowned. "Don't know what you're talking about." But Barnaby had pocketed his firearm.

The red-headed clan made a sleepy entrance to the scene. "Did someone mention Mum's temper? We're the only ones allowed to set her off before breakfast," George

informed his visitors.

"You've certainly done a good job, though," said Fred. "What business are you here on?"

"Dad must have invited them," said Ginny.

Ella pushed her way through Rilla and Courtney, who didn't seem to find Charlie and Fred the least bit offensive for all of their blatant magic origins, and marched up to the young Weasleys. "No, we had to find our own way here, young lady. Your mother seems to have kidnapped my great-grandson!"

"And we've no intention of returning him if you don't hear us out!" Petunia responded. "Thomas Dursley had magical powers, and Dorian can prove it. There's Robert Dursley's diary right there on the table, if you want to look through it."

"Robert? That lying uncle of mine?" Ella was bewildered. "He took Aunt Sally's side. He'd have rather a better chance of credibility if he made up something like that, now, wouldn't he?"

Petunia sighed. They would listen to no reason. She watched a month's worth of hope slip through her fingers. "When is the last time any harm was done to your family? Make no mistake, our ministry knows where you are. Why haven't they wiped you out yet?"

Barnaby frowned. "Don't ask me to fathom how your lot thinks."

She glanced downward. "Molly, get the boy."

Dorian would not be so awful, she decided, as Jimmy was retrieved from Ginny's old playpen (built with wizard space to take up an entire room of toys). He had been so sure of this plan—but there would be others. They did not need ministry approval, not if they kept their plans hidden well enough, but it sure would have helped. She looked up and saw the future of two worlds rush out Molly's crooked door.

But not all of it.

Rilla had stooped down on the pretence of grabbing her dropped handkerchief, and Courtney was with her. Once the rest of the Dursleys had crossed the border in their haste, there would be no coming back for the two young women.

Rilla stood up. "We believe you. We have a Dursley seal ring each; will that serve your purposes?"

Courtney spoke up. "What do you need our help for, anyway?"

Petunia smiled broadly. "The rings will do just fine." She began to explain.


	14. Grindelwald, Avery, and Tom

Fourteen-year-old Thomas Dursley was wondering if this was such a good idea. The teacher who had recognized him for what he was and sent him to this abandoned warehouse was a bit dodgy, after all. What would his family think about his current position? Their faces blurrily swam before him as he waited. His parents would probably ground him for life, and his younger brother and sister would lose all respect they had ever held for him.

He swallowed. That was going to happen anyway. It had been only a few months since he had discovered his power, but they had already noticed. His mother was quite paranoid, and understandably so. They had been hiding from the wizards for seventeen generations, and were even exploring the option of going underground literally. They would find out in a matter of years, and he would be unceremoniously thrown out.

He might as well have another place to stay by then. He belonged with his own species, not with his nice, normal family. Who knew if it spread? The devil could never hide forever. But now the tall man in unfamiliar robes was striding toward him.

"I've… come about the, er, job offer. Sir, I mean, your wizardry," he hastily added the correct title.

"Yes, yes," Gregory Avery waved a hand. "You're going to join us. Well, that's fine, but there's an initiation period."

Thomas looked down. "What do I need to do?"

Avery tossed him a dark robe like Avery's own and an eerie looking mask. "Put these on."

Thomas obeyed, afraid of crossing the older man, who, no doubt, knew how to control his magic.

"Come with me." Thomas followed him into a room full of similarly clad men.

"Well, no point in drawing it out," he told Thomas. Turning to a tall, sallow man reclining on what appeared to be a throne, "Here he is."

"Excellent. Are you sure it's the right one?"

"I though that was Tom's job."

Grindelwald frowned at him. "Why, so it is. Tom, would you elicit the necessary information from our guest?"

Thomas felt grubby hands on the sides of his ears. A black-haired boy a few years older than himself was gazing into his eyes, and his head was an incredible muddle for a minute. Images he thought he'd forgotten went skittering across his brain, too scattered and short for him to recognize.

Tom looked up, turning to face his lord. "Oh, it's him. Twenty-four Golding Street. No wards or anything."

Grindelwald nodded. "Why don't we take the little spy with us? Give him a little preview?"

There was a murmur of assent among the black robed men. A loud crack later, Thomas was standing in front of his own house.


	15. The Peril Begins

Minister McClaggen was not pleased. "So two young ladies walk in with a couple of seal rings and you expect me to believe they're representatives from the Dursleys, all ready to negotiate with wizards, six weeks after I presented you with this challenge?"

Brian and Mark nodded. "Ambassadors, yes. You'll find here the exact seal that appears on over half of your hate mail. Only the members of the Dursley family have the seal."

"Well, if they are Dursleys, they certainly aren't representatives of any others. Our tracing charms show that the majority of the Dursley clan is still in its underground abode. Would you like to see the clock?"

Dorian's face shone. "Clock? And it shows people's locations, you say?"

Petunia stepped forward. "Save it, Dorian; the Weasleys have one at home. Now about our deal…"

"Even assuming our deal, as you call it, were in any way binding, and I specifically recall telling you that it wasn't, you have not convinced the Dursley family of anything. I'll admit these women are a start, but, by and large, you are still dealing with a bunch of wackos!"

"So you admit that they aren't standard for the muggle world?" Dorian put in slyly.

"It only takes one! One wacko who knows where wizards live and how to get weapons. There are currently thousands of nutters wandering London alone who fear and despise magic because of a few bible verses taken out of context. Do you want to ruin us, Dursley?"

"If they fear us, it's because we are the unknown, sir, and if they despise us, it's because they can't tell a good wizard from a bad one, as they've never met either!" Petunia recognized Dorian's passionate tone from the speech he had been giving when she had first seen her second cousin by marriage. In this situation, also, he would not back down unless restrained by guards.

Rilla, who had remained quiet throughout the proceedings, spoke at this. "If you please, sir, it's quite true. My cousin and I had never seen a wizard, so we believed Ella when she told us how awful they were. Then we were faced with the actual people. If anything's dangerous, it's allowing this schism to continue."

"We know what it's like to hide all our lives," Courtney added, "and it's much better to be out in the light."

McClaggen calmed himself and switched gears. "They're happy not knowing, though! Why should two worlds ever need to mix?"

Petunia spoke up. "Thousands of witches and wizards are muggle-born. There families are in two different worlds. It's necessary that people belong to both worlds, but it's also very difficult. Also, the rise of a certain Dark Lord has made it difficult for muggles to hide from wizards even if they want to."

He put down his mug of coffee resignedly. "Have you given any thought to what you're going to do if you get your way? Perhaps you'll broadcast the secrets of centuries on the BBC?"

Brian gave half a smile. "Of course not, sir. We actually thought we'd start with Ireland, a place traditionally open to belief in magic. We're currently working under the Benevolence Theory."

McClaggen sighed. "You have theories with names now? Morgana preserve us."

"We decided against a large and potentially frightening benevolence. Instead we are going to start an exchange program of sorts, though it can obviously work only one way. Muggle studies students from several schools will be allowed to spend a year abroad in Ireland learning what a nonmagical secondary school is like, and Hogwarts graduates with, shall we say, less talent than average who are having difficulties finding work will be encouraged to take up an unskilled muggle trade in the land of the leprechaun.

"The plants will be instructed to perform magic discreetly in front of muggles they have grown to trust, and to explain the wizarding world to them. The students are to keep up correspondence when they leave the muggle schools. After approximately twenty years, a good portion of the people of Ireland will know of wizards. Next, we announce our presence and the presence of our supporters: we send letters instructing the wizards of Ireland and the muggle friends of our plants to gently explain our world to their neighbors, with demonstrations, if necessary. If all goes correctly, any given Irish citizen should know someone who has seen witchcraft, and all shall be instructed in our culture. If Ireland works out, we can try it on a global scale, but if not, well, everyone thinks the Irish are a bit daft anyway."

The minster cleared his throat. "Well, that's very well thought-"

But he was interrupted by Courtney's cry of "Look!"

An undersecretary had, indeed, brought the Dursleys' clock from its storage place to show an eager Dorian. Twenty-nine handles pointed towards 'mortal peril'.


	16. The Wedge

"No!" bellowed Thomas as Grindelwald charged into his home, leveling everything in his path. "They didn't do anything!"

Tom turned to his hostage. "They know the existence of wizards. The Dursleys may have the effect of a particularly useless mosquito, but if your neighbors ever decided you weren't crazy, we could have problems on our hands."

"My lord," called Avery, "They have been arranged in the parlor for your… treatment."

Tom continued. "There are rumors of a weapon powerful enough to wipe out a street full of people-- even wizards—instantly. No, the day is gone when we could treat muggles like baby garden gnomes."

"Help!" called Mrs. Dursley from inside. "Jacob, the witch hazel didn't work!"

"Their science is getting past spontaneous generation. It was with the utmost relief we realized that this theory of evolution was not going to give us away; how much longer can we wait? There are six billion of them, and six billion enemies of any kind must be wiped out."

Thomas gritted his teeth. "The only reason we are enemies is you make us so." He stared with a flaming intensity into the window of the parlor. The men in robes grew smaller and smaller, began to sprout hair and tails, and scampered out of his home. This wasn't right, this was what they did! Why couldn't he stop turning into his worst fear? What could he do that wouldn't be just what his family expected of wizards?

"Thomas! Thomas, where have they taken you?"

The future wasn't the immediate issue, he remembered as he watched Grindelwald vanish his men and then himself. Jerkily, Thomas pulled off the robe and mask he had been forced into and thrust them into the bushes. "Mum, I'm here!"

"Did they hurt you?"

He stared at his shoes, refusing to look his sister in the eyes. "I was kidnapped, and they got our address out of me. Looked straight into my mind," he told them in a flat, emotionless voice. At least the second part was true.

Always cool and collected, Robert asked, "Why did they go away?"

"I don't know, maybe the witch hazel finally kicked in."

"Too bad it didn't stop them from taking you, though."

Somehow, Thomas knew his brother would be the first to discover his secret, and he grew hot at the idea. "Can I just go to bed, then? I'm a bit rattled."

Jacob Dursley smiled nervously at his family. "That's a good idea. I think we could all use an early night."

Three days later, the Dursleys began work on their underground hiding place. Cousin Derrick was an engineer, and Aunt Rachel an architect, and it was only thanks to them that one of the first estates ever built a few yards under a sewer was a success. The house was enormous, meant to hold many generations of Dursleys, and made in the style of an old-fashioned manor.

Eight years later, the clan moved in. Robert and Susan did not. They had been taken in by the D'Angelo family only months before. Thomas was happy. No one would guess his secret.


	17. Courtney and Rilla

Seven-year-old Courtney and her younger cousin, Rilla, were earnestly discussing the visitor.

"She's nothing like the magicians we've heard about," argued Rilla. "She dresses like mommy."

"No," countered Courtney, "but her sister's a magician. Her sister that died. Two years ago."

"Why did she die?" gasped Rilla.

"I heard another magician had a fight with her and killed her. Magicians have tempers, and then they get mean. That's why we don't like them."

Rilla thought a minute. "Well, why did Uncle Vernon marry her?"

"Shhhh, he's Bath now. He doesn't get a name because he married a magician's sister."

"Bath's a name," Rilla informed her cousin, always ready to fight.

"But it's not a real name! It's a storybook name." Courtney could give as good as she got.

Rilla seemed satisfied. "I think it's pretty, marrying someone when your family doesn't even like it. Like Cinde-"

"Don't say it! Cin—you know who is one of the devils."

"No, just her godmother."

Courtney sighed, losing to her cousin once again. It was too late—half of their cousins were already staring in Rilla's direction.

Dexter was interested. He was eleven and knew everything. "She made Ella mad, because she married Vernon. But now she's all right. She says she didn't like her magic sister, and now an important magician gave her the sister's son to raise. He's only a little kid, and she's going to stomp the magic out of him, she says, and make sure he never learns the bad ways."

"Well, that's nice of her," said their cousin Alfred. "If Brenda was magic I'd want someone to save her."

"But I'd never desert my sister and pretend she wasn't real!" Courtney sobbed. "That's really bad! Even if she were a magician, I'd save her."

"What about the little kid?" Alfred wanted to know. "I wouldn't want anything stomping on me."

"Stomping out, Alfred," Dexter clarified. "That doesn't hurt."

"Is it still mean?"

Rilla looked at her cousin. "Yes, it's very mean. He can't help who he is, and I bet Bath is going to be nasty about it. He was always the meanest uncle."

But there was to be no more deliberation that night, as Uncle Barnaby was bundling the lot of them into bed. The four children went to bed, dreaming of magical kids and angry Uncle Vernon.


	18. Dursleys

"Ella!" Rilla called into the darkness of the sewer, still clutching the bewitched timepiece in front of her. "Barnaby! Imogen! Anyone home?"

Courtney consulted the hands over her cousin's shoulder. "There used to be dozens of hands, weren't there?" She scrambled down the ladder. "Look, now there's only you and I, Dexter, Geoffrey, Brenda, and Alfred."

Ever logical, Rilla pondered. "Too old to be asleep and too young to be fighting. Except Dexter—he's just a coward, I suppose: he _would_ be hiding with the rest. Well, it looks like our generation is all that's left of the great Dursley clan."

Courtney shook her head as Minister McClaggen cast memory charms within a five meter radius at the muggles. "So, Dorian, is this why you wanted us to kiss up to the Light Side?"

Mark nodded at McClaggen's disapparating figure. "The good minister has agreed to provide protective amulets to the muggles as the Bagnold administration did the last time this happened, before you lot were born. All that remains is to apologize—you were exactly right about the damage wizards are capable of."

Dexter and his younger cousins had cautiously peeked their heads out of their closet hiding space and emerged to greet the delegation. "Was that… was that Voldemort?" Brenda ventured.

Alfred looked suspiciously at Brian and Mark's nodding heads. "Then you were wrong," he challenged Dorian. "Magicians are evil."

"No," the beleaguered activist responded patiently. "Voldemort and a few dozen of his followers are evil. Most wizards fear and despise this one, but he seems to be gaining power again."

"Yeah," said Geoffrey, "You can't judge all of England by the Whigs."

The Dursleys glanced at each other appraisingly. "What do you say we make our parents proud?" asked Brenda.

"Proud?" Dexter repeated. "They'll be turning in their graves! However, they are not here anymore. I suppose I am now the eldest of the family, and I say we make sure this doesn't happen again."

Alfred smiled. "It's agreed, then. No more D'Angelo Dursleys and Real Dursleys. We're all in this together now."


	19. Hermione and Seamus

A month had passed and Harry was back at school once again, peering into the faces of Hermione Granger and Seamus Finnigan, who were wondering why they had been summoned. He cleared his throat, glad he had planned his speech a bit on the train ride. Was it wise to talk to them both together? Should he ask Hermione first, as Seamus more likely to balk at the idea?

But no, he had learned his lesson in his fifth year—all of the members of Dumbledore's Army were ready to help him. Ron and Hermione were still his closest friends, of course, but he needed to trust other people, too. Harry began.

"Do you trust me?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Seamus asked.

Harry watched his classmates' looks of confusion knowingly. "Do you believe I can rid the wizarding world of evil?"

He had explained the prophecy to the DA last term, but Hermione was rattled by his blunt question. "If it's destined, I suppose; I mean, you do have some sort of power Voldemort knows not, and all."

He looked at her oddly—it was unusual that he should see a subtlety that Hermione had missed, but then she had not been to the wizard muggle alliance yet. "Not Voldemort, Hermione, the Dark Lord."

"Sorry?"

"According to the prophecy, I have the power to vanquish the Dark Lord. Of course, Voldemort is the specific Dark Lord who marked me. But he's one of the greatest wizards of our time. If anyone can take down Voldemort, it's a dozen or so highly skilled Aurors.

However, I'm setting my sights on the Dark Lord yet to be. Voldemort wasn't the first, nor will he be the last. Ever heard of the Knights of Walpurgis? A consequence of maintaining the secrecy of an entire world is there's always some people that grow up hating those they hide from. That's why the worlds must be joined."

If Seamus had been taken aback before, he was downright bewildered now. "You want to… rejoin with the muggles?"

"Exactly," Harry replied.

"But Harry," Hermione reminded him, "We've been apart about a thousand years; haven't you listened to the Sorting Hat? It was made official over three hundred years ago. There must be a reason for all that."

"There was," replied Harry, who had done his research. "A long time ago, wizards were just part of the scenery in muggle villages, no more different than a leper or a woman with a long nose. Then, after the Middle Ages, science reared its ugly head. People realized we couldn't be tacked down by Avicenna's books or Galileo's papers. We were completely out of the box. They were afraid, and they started to condemn us. Of course, Wendelin the Weird and her friends thought it all a brilliant joke, but others were upset by their negativity. We began the Seclusion.

Now it's causing more problems than it's worth. We can use evolution and genetics to explain our origins—no one seriously believes paranormal powers are from the devil anymore. How can there be a Dark Lord who fears and despises muggles when we live side by side with them?"

Seamus paused a moment to take this in. "Do you know what that would mean?"

"Nuclear war from the religious nuts?" Hermione answered.

"No," Seamus replied, "My mother's family and my father's family could come to Christmas dinner together, and I wouldn't have to make something up for Dad's family!" He frowned. "Total honesty. Wouldn't that be extraordinary?"

Harry grinned with relief. "That's why you're here, Seamus. We're going to start in Ireland, and you've gone to muggle school there."

Hermione looked disapproving. "Does the ministry know about this?"

"Not a clue. I need you, as Head Girl, to take Seamus and make a plea for this to Dumbledore, and he can get other schools involved. As far as any country's government is concerned, it's an exchange program between magical schools only. At the end of the year, we find out which students failed their NEWTs and convince them to take up a muggle trade." He explained the Alliance's plan. "Simple, right?"

Hermione smiled indulgently. "Harry have you thought this through past next week? What if someone gets hurt in Ireland? What if it leaks out before we're ready? What if… anything!"

Harry grinned. "Have faith. We have an entire Alliance worth of consultants, not to mention a few Dursleys. Anything that goes wrong, we'll find a way to fix. Won't it be worth it?"

The Head Girl sighed. "Oh, I suppose."


	20. Healing

Jill stared limply at the wilted lilies in her hand as she laid them softly on her sister's grave, the first time she had ever visited. Her mind was kilometers away from the cemetery—the spotlessly blue sky was entirely too bright for the way she felt.

Jill could remember when Kirsten first received her Hogwarts letter. She was so excited that she reread the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy that week. Of course, she was later to learn that fantasy books had little to do with the real world, wizarding or otherwise. The Weasleys, distant cousins of hers, came out of the woodwork and offered to show her around the fabulous world that was now her own.

. Kirsten came home holidays with her pockets bulging with Wet Start No Heat Fireworks—just because she couldn't do magic over the holidays didn't mean she couldn't enjoy magic as long as she kept it away from the muggles. Jill had stared in awe at the magical glow for hours, amazed that the dull universe she had grown up in could turn so exciting with one wave of a wand.

Five years later, her own letter had come, and she was thrown into the heart of the world she had only heard about through her childhood. It was like she had been changed from a frog to a princess. The sheer number of spells designed to help and delight her never failed to astound Jill, right up until her sixth year, and the friends she made at Hogwarts were an enchantment better than any she learned in class. She had believed life could not get any better.

And she was right—in fact, it got a whole lot worse.

First year aurors always had the most casualties. There was a saying at the ministry—you get cursed enough and you learn when to duck. Kirsten had not been cursed enough when the Avada Kedavra came.

Jill took the news hard, to say the least. The woman who had first shown her the wizarding world was now gone from it. No matter how cool magic looked or felt, the fact remained that it was dangerous to her. She felt she would have given back all of her powers just to have her sister with her again.

What could she do but turn back into a frog? With no secondary education, Jill began waiting tables at a hamburger restaurant in her hometown of Silver Oak. She certainly felt froggy. Though it lacked the flash and dazzle of the wizarding world, her life was now safe.

Jill looked up, jarred back to the present, as the full impact of this statement hit her. Safe. Her friends were now garishly predictable, her boyfriend had told her in advance in what year he was planning to propose to her, and her parents would be the same old parents until the day they died. But at least everyone in Silver Oak would die old.

She watched a robin twitter inanely at its mate as she reflected. About the only risky thing she had done since she had dropped out was joining the Wizard Muggle Alliance. She smiled a sad, bitter smile. And Amanda thought her schism over the chess game was stupid. Jill had left everything she loved out of senseless fear. She had never even considered becoming an auror.

Would Kirsten have wanted this? Finding the answer somewhere in the ancient limbs of the elm in the center of the cemetery, Jill suddenly cast the dismal lilies onto a neighboring tomb and instead selected a nearby cluster of wild heather for her sister's grave.


	21. Marcus Flint

"Hey, Flinthead!" called the former Slytherin quidditch captain's boss. "There's a couple of people here to see you. Make it quick; you need to wash the manticores in ten minutes."

Life had certainly taken a turn for the worse after that twit Davies had beaten him in the tryouts for England's quidditch team. Relying on his brawn to support him after Hogwarts, Marcus Flint had not bothered with his studies. Now he was cleaning up hinkypink dung for a living with no end in sight. It was thus that he met the opening statement of his visitors with more interest than he might have right after graduation.

"Hello. Marcus is it?" Jeff greeted his last hope for the day. "Would you like a better job?"

Despite his current circumstances, he was still a Slytherin. "What kind of a job?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Jill, "we have hundreds of careers open. What are you good at?"

Marcus stared. "What am I good at? Well, quidditch, obviously. Are you coaches?"

"No, I don't think so," Jeff chuckled. "Quidditch doesn't really get you anywhere after school unless you have real talent, and if you had real talent, you'd be on a team a few years after graduation. Besides flying, was there any specific spell you could do better than anyone else?"

Marcus frowned suspiciously. "I stopped caring soon after wingardium leviosa."

"Then you can levitate things pretty well, can you?" Jill said hopefully.

"Well, part of quidditch involves understanding the motion charms on the balls." He lowered his voice. "As my athletic days are over, I don't mind telling you I bewitched my share of quaffles. Very mild charm, of course, in case it was noticeable—I didn't want a repeat episode of that bludger in that one game against Gryffindor a few years ago. I never caught the idiot on my team that did that one. No one recognized my quaffle spells, but they were effective enough."

Jill grinned. "Oh, you'd be perfect for construction. All you have to do is lift some heavy stones without appearing to use magic. All the other workers will have to use their muscles, so you'll move right to the top."

Marcus glared. "They have to lift heavy stones without magic? I'm not going to any penal camps."

"No penal camps; it's their job. We're trying to recruit people to live among the muggles."

Marcus' first impression was one of shock. He was from the pure blood house—did they really think that had changed? What sort of Slytherin would do such a thing?

"Your time is up, Flinthead. Those manticores aren't going to bathe themselves."

On second thought, the pure blood mentality was one of survival, and these people made it sound simple to survive among mudbloods. Why let his inherent talents languish as he struggled to find a place in the bottom of the barrel? As a wizard, didn't he have a gigantic advantage over muggles everywhere? Why not exploit it?"

"I have to go," he told Jeff. "I'll think about it."

"Well," Jeff said, handing him an address on a slip of paper, "if you decide to do it, you can firecall Arabella Figg at number nine, Privet Drive. She'll set you up."

The Alliance representatives left Marcus Flint with his mind full of plans he'd never dreamed of an hour ago.


	22. Meg and Dennis

"There is a new student at our school this week called Dennis," Meg Flanders wrote in her class journal. "He is really quite odd. He writes with a pencil that is worn down to the nub—I think he's scared of the pencil sharpener. He was staring at it with big eyes, and before we showed him where it was, he was trying to dip it in whiteout!

"He is from England, so that might account for some of it, but he is strange in other ways, too. I could have sworn that the first time he was told to get poster board from the supply closet, we turned around and there it was on his desk! I've got to get him to teach me that!

Dennis is a little shy, but perfectly friendly. Most of the boys here are idiots. At least Dennis is nice. I'm going to invite him around for tea when I get to know him better."

Meg looked up. Was the last part true? What were the chances that she was actually going to make friends with a boy no one else liked?

But then, did she have anything to lose? Meg knew in her heart no one was planning on inviting the daydreaming daughter of a goat herder to any of the cool parties. She had known it since she had started at this horrid secondary school. Something kept her trying, because it was her only hope.

But now there was small, mousy Dennis, who had thought goats were neat when she described them. Sure, she could poke fun at him and try to earn some normality points with the rest of the class. Yet, that somehow wasn't in her nature, part of the reason she failed to impress the other members of her year. In making friends, as in everything else she did, Meg Flanders was going to take the direct route.

Dennis was approaching her desk as she finished writing. "Meg? The teacher announced break five minutes ago."

Meg smiled up at the new kid. This break was going to be different. Meg would not scurry to be a part of the huddle of popular kids, where she always got pushed to the outside. She and Dennis would make a nice little huddle, with maybe a couple others.

Except not.

"Hey, Dennis!" called Francis O'Rourke. "How did you do that with the posterboard? I swear I saw it fly into your hands!"

"Denny, my man! Welcome to Hillview! Did you really turn a teacher's wig purple?" asked a girl who Meg had never seen approach a new kid in her life.

"Dennis, right? Can you control it, or does it just happen?"

There went her first real friend, slipping through her fingers. She pulled him into a corner. "Listen, Dennis, you need to be careful. Francis' dad is a reporter. Whatever secret you have, don't tell him, or he could have you locked up in a science lab running tests for the next five years," warned Meg, who read a lot of science fiction.

To her surprise, Dennis smiled broadly. "That would be a great way to accomplish my mission!" At this point, the new kid was absolutely engulfed in excited fourth years.

Meg looked down, not bothering to ask. She had lost interest; she would not be on the outside of yet another huddle which now surrounded her last hope. Dennis had some sort of mission that prevented him from listening to her advice. If he did get locked up, tough noogies—she had tried her best. As for Meg, she was back to the same old mission she'd had before he had come.


	23. Bill and Jonas

"I just can't believe it!" exclaimed Mr. O'Rourke to the spellbound room of newspapermen after Dennis had shown him a series of table levitations, pencils turned into rulers, and typewriters made to sing 'God Save the King'.

"Hey, O'Rourke," said his editor, who had been watching the proceedings with suspicious eyes. He had seen stranger things in Ireland. "Do you realize that now we have absolute proof of a news story that could put County Cork on the world journalism map, and it can't go in an article? We can't show something like this in pictures—it just looks like a fraud."

Mr. O'Rourke looked sadly at the gaggle of students who had accompanied Dennis and his son to his office. "I suppose you're right. Even on television it would be laughed off as special effects."

Dennis grinned up at the reporters. "I think you'll find that taken care of." He proceeded to extract from his backpack clippings from about half a dozen Irish newspapers. "Two magicians discovered in our midst," read one. "Local woman from Scotland blessed with unexplainable powers," said another.

The small wizard explained. "My brother owled these over this morning. Now it's being called a very organized prank by world journalists, but just a few more reporters like you taking this seriously in isolated areas of the country and they can't ignore it! My friend Hermione disobeyed orders and placed some people in Australia, too, so sooner or later we will blow the lid off this can of worms.

The editor stared blankly. "There are more of you?"

Dennis nodded, addressing the entire room. "Millions. All over the world. We're kept hidden for reasons that have become less and less as the years go by. The worst part is, a lot are born to non-magic people—we call them muggle-borns. They're going to be in on the action, too, once they get back to their hometowns for Christmas break. They tend to be on our side."

The editor looked weakly at Mr. O'Rourke. "Bill, I think since your son brought us the story, you can investigate further with the help of these witnesses."

But it was soon clear that this would have to wait. Only Dennis recognized the loud crack that punctured the air next for what it was, and only he knew the meaning of the horrible robes and masks of the printer's new visitors, which he had seen before only in decades-old photographs from the Daily Prophet.

Even the typewriters stopped singing. "Call the police! It's a Dark--"

It was at this point that Dennis was Stunned. But Voldemort had made one error in judgment.

The previous attacks of his first reign had been on small families in their homes. Even he knew he was not yet strong enough to take on a public place—the stealth of the Dark Lord fit with his name. However, he had grown impatient in his dormant period. With his body restored to strength, he decided the new challenge of the wizarding world, this silly notion of revelation, merited a personal appearance from Lord Voldemort. However, he expected to find only one half-grown wizard and a few muggles, which he estimated as possessing about half the challenge of a flobberworm. This meant he needed only three or four Death Eaters for his first resurrection attack.

The muggles in the room outnumbered him ten to one, and he could only crucio them one at a time. And, more importantly, they knew he was a wizard. One intern in a corner cubicle was thus able to slip under his desk and quietly call the swat team.

Lord Voldemort had steeled himself against every magical death known to wizardkind. Yet, like Dominic before him, he had severely underestimated the muggle toy known as a sniper rifle.

The new hero of the wizarding world was Jonas Kirke, a muggle. And, in a few months, they had the clearance to tell him so.


	24. Vincent Crabbe, Wizard for Hire

Life has gone to the dogs, Vincent Crabbe decided as he uncertainly boarded a muggle train for the first time in his life. Six months ago, he had entertained plans of leaving Hogwarts and becoming a dark minion. Actually, he had considered that his only option, leading him to neglect his studies for far too long. Now that Voldemort had died and his fellow wizards were getting friendly with the muggles, the Walpurgi were much easier to track, and most experts in the field predicted that no Dark Lord would take the place of the previous one. The muggles tended to regard wizards with a congenial sort of reverence. What cause would a pureblood have for malice in a few generations?

Not that the life of a post-revelation wizard was perfect. Radicals everywhere had condemned the entire race, twisting their story so that it seemed the wizards had hidden themselves and other magical creatures out of shame. However, just as many civil rights groups as hate groups were springing up, and a younger generation of muggles was learning about the Salem witch trials from a new perspective. Whether out of fear or magnanimity, most of them appeared to see no reason to dislike their newly discovered neighbors.

A middle-aged woman in the seat across from Crabbe noted his outlandish robes and the broom slung defiantly over his shoulder with goggling eyes. "Oh, are you magical, young man? You're the first I've met up close. I've been ever so stunned since last winter. This is the most exciting thing that's ever happened in my life! Are you a wizard for hire? Why aren't you riding your broomstick?"

Definitely not fear, Crabbe decided. "Hey, lady. Don't think you know anything about brooms," he challenged her, not willing to admit he didn't know the way to his new town. "What makes you think they can go on long trips?"

"Well, I saw one fly over the highway last week," she responded coolly.

"Listen. There aren't a lot of wizards on this earth. Now that the fools up in Ireland ruined everything, my lot is going to start marrying muggles, and magic is going to disappear forever. It's best I don't mix with any of your lot."

She regarded Crabbe with a sullen stare. "Well, don't you worry about that, young man. I'm far too old for you."

He couldn't help it—he had to smile. She sounded exactly like Pansy Parkinson. "Vincent Crabbe," he said, extending his hand.

"Charmed, I'm sure," she responded. "Where are you headed?"

"Edmonton. They don't have a wizard for their police force yet. I'm no hit wizard, but I can Stun well enough."

She grimaced. "You've proven that." Looking down. "Don't worry about your heritage. Somehow I think your lot is having more influence on us than we are on you."

He had never thought of that. "There are six billion of you."

She didn't see the significance of the number. "Don't you think we'd give our right arms to have the skills of the weakest witch in the world? You're like so many boy bands." She looked down. "But this, too, shall pass. We will come to take magic for granted as we do electricity. The real magic is not in a stick of wood, anyway."

Crabbe had a few moments to consider this before the conductor came by. When the wizard appeared confused—he had not realized one must keep the strange scrap of paper-- his companion bought another ticket for him. He wondered if all six billion muggles were this magical.

Fin

A/N: Let me take this chance to thank all of my reviewers, from the shortest ("") to the longest (which turned out to be a political attack) to the one that astoundingly arrived five minutes after I posted. I am considering writing about the adventures of Vincent Crabbe, wizard for hire, but I want to at least wait to see if this becomes alternate universe and correct the parts that are. When you review this one, please tell me if you're interested enough to read anything that insane.


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